Page 115 of Bump and Run

Twenty-Six

Eliza

I can’t tell him.I’ve tried.

I’ve woken up every single day for weeks with a surge of confidence dancing in my veins. Today’s the day. This is it. I’m going to tell Junior Morgan that there’s a life growing inside of me and that it’s his as much as it is mine. I’ll tell him that I don’t want to live without it. I want to keep it. I’m in love with it. I want him to be in love with it, too.

Then I see his face and that confidence burns to the ground.

I climb the stairs to the third floor and walk through my room towards the bathroom. It’s strange how fast something becomes a ritual; a part of your daily routine that’s so necessary, you don’t even remember what life was like before it.

I open the drawer next to the sink. One of these days, the positive result might fade, but right now, it’s there for me to stare at every day. Right now, my life is long bouts of daydreaming and fantasy before bed, just me lying there imagining what Junior will say or do once I tell him.

I reach into the drawer to grab it but my hand squeezes air.

A jolt of panic grips me and I pull the drawer out as far as it’ll go.

I sift through the mess of loose hair ties and hairbrushes, tossing the curling iron to the side, aggressively pulling everything out of the way because it has to be here. It was here this morning. It was—

“Looking for this?”

My heart stops. Everything stops.

I turn around and there’s my father, standing in my bedroom doorway holding the white stick with the little pink cross on it. I open my mouth to answer but nothing comes out, just solid air.

“Sit down, Eliza,” he says.

I hesitate. “Why are you going through my things?”

“I said, sit down.” He doesn’t budge, he doesn’t even blink, but his voice somehow digs a little deeper.

I move with shaking knees and sit down on the edge of my bed. “Why are you going through my things?” I ask again.

“It’s my house. They’re my things,” he says, flicking his wrist to toss the test into the trash can beside his foot. “How far along are you?”

“Dad, please…” I pull my eyes away from the trash. “I don’t feel comfortable talking to you about—”

“I don’t care how comfortable you feel. I’m your father and—”

“Since when?”

“I am your father and you will answer my questions,” he continues. “How far along are you?”

A rock builds in my throat, latching on so tightly that I can’t force it down. “I’m not sure,” I answer. “Two months or so…?”

“You don’t know?”

“It’s hard to say.”

“Who’s the father?”

I press my lips together. “Dad, please…”

“Eliza,” he growls, “if you say you don’t know, I swear…”

“No, I know who the father is, I just…”

“Then who is it?”

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